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Sunday, 16 June 2013

It
has been such a long time since I actually read this book that I considered not
reviewing it at all, but for various reasons The Lighthouse has stayed with me, so
I decided to write about it in brief anyway. The Lighthouse is Alison Moore’s
debut novel and is notable for the fact that it made the shortlist for the 2012
Man Booker Prize, therefore gaining this slight novel some serious attention.

The
Lighthouse
is the story of a middle-aged man called Futh, who embarks on a walking holiday
in Germany after the dissolution of his marriage. Unfortunately for Futh he
embodies the term ‘absolute loser’ and is an almost completely unlikable
character. During his circular ramble though the German countryside his
bathetic past is thoroughly picked through and it makes for very bleak reading
indeed. Futh’s life was initially blighted by being abandoned by his mother,
only to be left with his insipid father, who then went on to have one soulless
affair after another. Pretty much all of the supporting characters are both
dysfunctional and unlikable. I wouldn’t recommend The Lighthouse as a holiday read,
unless you particularly enjoy the psychology of human dysfunction.

The
fact that The Lighthouse in an entirely depressing narrative does not particularly
worry me, it is the fact that it made the Man Booker Prize shortlist for 2012
and has been lauded for its “serious” qualities. The novel does deal with the
important theme of how past traumas can shape the future. It is also a precisely
pieced together narrative – something akin to a literary jigsaw puzzle with
everything ultimately linked to each other. Unfortunately The Lighthouse also suffers from
having its internal mechanisms being entirely visible. There are a multitude of
all too obvious literary devices used throughout the narrative, all of which
could have been either omitted or used with more subtlety.Within its pages we have lighthouses,
moths and that old chestnut the Venus Fly-Trap as all too apparent metaphors.
Futh’s circular route through the German countryside, taking him back to the
guesthouse he started out from (called Hellhaus – meaning lighthouse in German,
sigh…) is a clichéd analogy for the dysfunctional eternal return of his life.
The most unoriginal metaphor occurs when Futh meets his childhood ‘friend’ at
the supermarket and ends up buying a bun that he had handled, complete with a
fingerprint - a heavy-handed metaphor for the fact that Futh’s friend was
sleeping with his wife.

The
Lighthouse
is perfect fodder for book clubs, so much so there is even a page on Alison
Moore’s website containing questions for book-clubbers. My book club groups (26
members) almost universally pondered over the fact that the book is so highly
regarded when they struggled to be engaged with the characters and found the
narrative to be obvious and unrelentingly bleak without much reward. After all,
this book was short-listed for the Man booker Prize along with the winner –
Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies and such writers as the super
erudite literary freak Will Self.

This
brings us to the question of the worth of literature prizes such as the Man
Booker. Mantel’s two winning novels are certainly worthy, but what about the
truly excruciating The Finkler Question that won a few years ago – the
worst book I’ve ever read? That book still haunts me and I feel like my psyche
has been damaged in an insidious way. I’ve heard whispers that judges shirk
reading the books, passing the task onto underlings for assessment. I’ve also
been told that a former judge revealed in an interview that often the judges
are so deadlocked on deciding he final winner that the only compromise is to
give the award to a lesser book.

Perhaps
the most interesting issue to think about is whether literature awards are
actually good for authors and the industry as a whole. With everyone so fixated
on awards perhaps many worthy authors and books are overlooked, with
undeserving novels getting unwarranted attention whilst the more deserving fall
by the wayside. There’s a rich tapestry of literature out there, far more than
what appear on award long-lists. So are awards worth our attention? Or are do
they create an illusion of quality and are more about the powerful sway of the
market? I’m undecided – the jury’s out so to speak, but these days I’m feeling
less inclined to read award-winning novels and I’m pretty sure my book club
members are too.

Synopsis

This blog is a project designed to help improve my writing skills and to provide a record of what I have read over the years. Hopefully it will also be a resource for those curious about literature. I mostly read literary fiction, cult books, non fiction and science fiction. I also run book clubs at Subiaco Public Library, where I’ve worked happily amongst the books for the last 10 years; so some of the books I review have been selected by my book club members, which helps introduce me to authors I might normally ignore. I have also completed a B.A. in literature at U.W.A. Also you’ll find no links to online bookstores on this blog. I love bookstores and I encourage everyone to support them.